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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25692265">Words, Signs, and Symbols</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/pseuds/solrosan'>solrosan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Gay Pride, Gen, Labels Are Confusing, Labels are hard, M/M, Pride, Pride Parades, Symbolism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:15:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25692265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/pseuds/solrosan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Names, laws, and opinions are always changing and it's hard to keep up sometimes. During a stay in London, on their way from one place to the next, Andy, Joe, Nicky, and Booker encounter the 20th century's LGBT rights movement for the first time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Andy | Andromache &amp; Booker | Sebastien le Livre &amp; Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani &amp; Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>292</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Words, Signs, and Symbols</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Last Saturday the Pride parade was supposed to take place in Stockholm, and though I understand completely why it didn't it really made me feel sad and small. So I wrote this fic to get some Pride in there. I hope you enjoy it!</p><hr/><p><b>Please note</b> that this fic contains brief mentions of the Holocaust, Nazi imprisonment of gay men, and the Troubles.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They haven’t stayed on top of this particular social issue. It’s not like they are oblivious about it -- they are affected by it, after all -- but bigotry is an ever swinging pendulum and throughout their lives they have experienced both tolerance and intolerance. So together they have carved out a place for themselves in this world where they can be who they are no matter what, and over the centuries (millennia for Andy, really) they have brought that place with them wherever they’ve gone.</p><p>And they aren’t activists, they are mercenaries.</p><p>Using scripture to prosecute people, however, no matter what people, no matter what scripture, never sits right with Joe and Nicky. Andy finds the entire idea childish, but she’s stopped voicing that opinion after the witch trials, and Booker… Booker’s had a steep learning curve because he was once one of those who blindly condemned it without having given it any thought of his own. The others never hold it against him, because the phrase “a product of one’s time” is something they’ve become very familiar with and they take a lot of things in their strides. </p><p>So no, they haven’t stayed on top of this. The last time it came up was the Holocaust and the concentration camps. The pink triangle became a footnote in the sea of yellow stars that were their focus, but it sticks with them. (They were never actually at the camps, they helped people run and they helped them hide. In hindsight, they aren’t sure that was the right call, but hindsight is a curse they try to never utter.) </p><p>Apparently they are gay now, homosexuals. It makes them no difference. Joe happily admits that the English word for a man who’s attracted to other men is definitely on his Top Five of things he’s been called. Let’s be happy, let’s be gay. Andy gags at the idea of being a “lesbian” or “sapphic” and shot Booker once for calling her a “lezzie”. Not that the terms are accurate (labels rarely are) since she fucks both men and women and doesn’t ask questions. Nicky can’t be bothered with any of it, stating that the combination of letters means fuck-all to him and the important thing is the intent behind them.</p><p>They are mercenaries, nothing else.</p><p>The Troubles (which, for all of his talk about combinations of letters and the intent behind them, has Nicky foaming at the mouth at the insane understatement of that name) brings them to London in the late 1980’s. It’s the second time they are back on the British Isles since they gave up looking for Quynh and there’s a silent understanding that they are going to pretend that the whole thing never happened. Or at least that it didn’t happen here.</p><p>And it actually <i>didn’t</i> happen in London, so…</p><p>They get in late, buy chips from a street vendor and check in to the hotel.</p><p>“You here for the march, then?” says the young woman behind the desk as she hands Nicky the keys to both rooms. </p><p>“No,” he says, already handing on the key for the room with two single beds to Andy, barely listening. He’s tired. He wants to eat, shower, and sleep, and thinks nothing more of the odd question. </p><p>They eat their poor excuse for dinner sitting on Joe and Nicky’s bed since it’s a double and obviously better for communal eating. Andy is quieter than usual, forcing the rest of them to drive the conversation to make sure it doesn’t get quiet, because in the silence lives the darkness. In the end, it mostly boils down to the three men complaining about the weather -- which isn’t fair, because it’s a lovely summer night, even by Mediterranean standards. </p><p>When they’ve eaten, they say good night. Andy and Booker go to their own room and Nicky takes his shower. Andy doesn’t sleep well and it doesn’t help that Booker bolts awake in the middle of the night. She doesn’t ask what he dreamt of and he doesn’t tell her, but she knows and he knows she knows.</p><p>Their transport north is late in the afternoon, so they indulge themselves by sleeping in. They eat breakfast in Joe and Nicky’s bed as well. Or at least in their room, and one can argue if weak tea and cold toast with marmalade from a small, vacuum sealed plastic container is allowed to be called “breakfast”, but it’s what they are passing it off as.</p><p>There is commotion outside and Booker, who stands closest to the window overlooking the street, frowns.</p><p>“What is it?” asks Andy.</p><p>“Protest of some sort,” Booker says. </p><p>Nicky, remembering the question from yesterday, gets up and walks over to him. Down in the street below, a huge amount of people are slowly marching and shouting, wearing signs and blowing in whistles. On both sides, policemen are walking, probably to keep them in line. Nicky frowns as well.</p><p>Booker’s the one who sees it first. He nudges Nicky with his elbow and points at one of the banners. A huge, pink triangle. Both of them go cold for a moment, because <i>please</i> let that part of history not repeat itself already, but then they read the words over it. Gay Pride, it says and Nicky and Booker look at each other to make sure they’ve read that right.</p><p>“What is it?” Andy asks again.</p><p>“I’m… not sure,” says Nicky and the other two joins them at the window.</p><p>They stand there, all four of them, watching the people march pass them with signs demanding rights and protesting oppression (and some of them with very colourful suggestions for the Prime Minister). Booker thinks of the march on Versailles and shivers, his hands holding the mug with the now stone cold tea a little harder.</p><p>“Look!” exclaims Joe and points, “Isn’t that your axe, Andy?”</p><p>Nicky lets out a laugh, but Andy curses in a language long dead, because there is actually a banner with the text “Lesbian Strength” where the first T looks very much like Andy’s beloved axe.</p><p>The signs says they want the right to show affection in public, that the gays are revolting, that they should have the right to marry who they want, “Out, Loud and Proud”, “Man is Woman is People”, “Gay rights are Human rights”... it goes on and on and they keep standing there. Fascinated. Lost in thought.</p><p>When they finally see the end of it they look at each other. Andy shrugs and goes to sit on the bed again and Booker declares he’s going to find proper food -- or at least warm tea -- and leaves. Joe lingers by the window, looking at the back of the marching people who disappear around the corner. </p><p>“I hope they get what they want,” he says when he finally turns back to the room.</p><p>“I hope they stop using my axe,” Andy mutters. “Why my axe?”</p><p>“It’s a nice axe,” says Nicky and she shoves him off the bed. He laughs and remains on the floor. </p><p>Joe sits down next to Andy and picks up another cold toast to nibble on. Nicky holds out a hand to get one too and Andy gives him one.</p><p>“Did you see the triangle?” he asks.</p><p>The other two nods, and Joe says, “Good on them for turning that one around.”</p><p>Nicky hums in agreement, no one’s questioning weather the people marching through London know the history about the symbol or not. They all seemed quite politically aware and they wouldn’t be the first group to take a symbol of oppression and turn it into something else.</p><p>Booker comes back with a tray of four mugs with actual steaming, hot tea. “Apparently they do this every year,” he says as he gives each of them a mug. “Not just a one time thing.”</p><p>The rest of the team seems more interested in the tea than the information however, and the conversation moves to the rest of the journey and the mission at hand. They finish up (deciding that they will eat lunch more or less as soon as they leave) and Andy and Booker go to pack. Nicky finally heaves himself off the floor to help gather the few things they have spread around.</p><p>“Do you think all the people marching were like us?” he asks, having waited until Andy left the room to do it. </p><p>“Immortal?” Joe teases. “Probably not.”</p><p>Nicky sighs and throws a dirty sock at him.</p><p>“Does it matter?” Joe asks.</p><p>Nicky shrugs. “Not really.”</p><p>And it doesn’t, not really. The people marching, protesting… it doesn’t matter if they are the ones oppressed or if they just want to see an end to injustice. Still, there were so many of them. Nicky has never seen that many people like him -- if they are indeed like him -- in one place before. Perhaps not even if he put together everyone he’s ever run into across the centuries. (No matter in what word they would have used or in what order they would have put the letters.)</p><p>It’s a weird feeling that he can’t put his finger on.</p><p>“I hope they get what they want,” says Joe again as he zips up the bag and hauls it over his shoulder. “And that they never stop using Andy’s axe!”</p><p>Nicky laughs and picks up his own bag. They meet up with Andy and Booker in the reception and check out. The normal traffic has resumed on the street outside, but there are fliers and litter proving that not long ago a group of people with a clear purpose and goal had marched past. </p><p>They are mercenaries, not activists. Social change takes too much time, much more than they can give to any cause without risking drawing attention to what they are. They all know that. So the least they can do is make sure there are good people around to fight the fights they can’t, no matter how much they might want to.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/49/4b/36/494b36689eabe2b8d0919775919b550d.jpg">This is the banner that Joe pointed out to Andy.</a>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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